Prepper Food Storage List – Make Yours

Compile a Prepper Food Storage List

Devising a List

A Prepper food storage list is often one of the first steps that a Prepper takes. I could go on and on about pack this food or that food. However, I think the first thing to consider is if it is food that you one know how to prepare and two would eat it. What I mean by this is what your level of cooking skill allows you to make. I for instance cannot bake a cake. I can bake cornbread all day long but cakes always turn out dry.

So if all you have ever cooked are microwave dinners and stuff from a box, you do not want to wait until an emergency to find out that you have no clue how to cook those dried beans and corn meal you stockpiled away. Once you have determined what you are comfortable doing we move on to the next step of devising a Prepper food storage list.

Time frame you are prepping for.

The next part would be to determine how long you are prepping to rely on your stocks. Do you simply want a two week supply on hand, a month or longer. This step is important, as it will determine which foods are appropriate and have that long of a shelf life, it will also determine how much room you need to store your stockpiles. For the purposes of this I am going to assume a time of one month.

On to the Foods

Unprepared Foods – For your food storage list.

Now that you have determined your food Prepper skills it is time to select the foods for your Prepper food storage checklist. Normally it is suggested that you store raw materials over items that are already prepared. So you would store dry beans, corn, corn meal, flour, various nuts and seeds, large amounts of water or a way to renew your water supplies, you would then consider protein sources and vegetables.

If you are concerned with a lack of power you might store, dried meats such as jerky and freeze dried foods, nuts provide protein as well. You can also resort to canned foods if necessary. This method often tends to result in cheap Prepper food ideas though it can add up if your purchasing lots of jerky and such. This method is also better if you have access to meat stocks from say farm raised chickens or even a place you could catch fish nearby.

Prepackaged Foods – For your food storage checklist.

On the other end of the spectrum is if you do not have very many cooking skills then you can stock pile things such as MREs or Meals Ready To Eat. These can often be found at army surplus stores for the military grade ones and numerous camping and outfitting stores for more civilian type ones. You can find some made by Backpackers Pantry here. These frequently come with some way to heat them up and usually only need a bit of water. The downside though is that they tend to be on the expensive side and due to their packaging take up more room than the same number of meals would if stored in a more basic form.

The final consideration

The final thing to consider is how many people you are prepping for. You will need to set aside enough food for each person in this list. One way to assist in this final step is to actually make out a week or twomeal plan that includes how much of each food is needed per meal. This will allow you to calculate how much food you need for that period and you can then multiple that by your end goal to get a total.

For instance if you determine that you use 1 lb of cornmeal a week and your making a plan for a year then you will need at a minimum 52 lbs of cornmeal. Many health professionals recommend 8 – 8 oz glasses of water a day so we will use that number for our calculation. For the purpose of my demonstration, I am going to use just a single person.

An example Prepper Food Storage Checklist.

Using Prepackaged foods for your Food Storage List

For one person using MREs you will need 3 MREs per day + 4 – 16oz bottles of water to reach the recommended amount. So for a month you would want to store 3x 30 MREs and 4x 30 Bottles of water. This would equate out to about 90 MREs and 120 bottles of water. A case of water is roughly 24 bottles and a case of MREs normally 12. So you would need 7.5 cases of MREs and 5 cases of water.

This could easily fit into a closet and be stored out of the way, which would make it an ideal starting point for one person. However, cost is an issue as MRE cases normally run between $70 and $90 each your looking at around $560 to $720 for this plan.

Using unprepared – Cheap Prepper food on a budget.

1. Powdered eggs – 32 servings for $14.00
2. Bisquick Mix – 28 servings $5.00
3. Powdered Milk – 36 servings $15.00
4. Canned Cornbeef hash – 2s – 15 cans $22.00
5. Saltine Crackers – 300 packs in case – $18.00
6. 30 cans of mixture soups, raviolis – $60
7. 2 bags Corn meal         $8
8. 30 cans vegetables       $30
9. 10lb bag of rice             $6
10. Jar of Peanut Butter      $4
11. Chicken and Beef Bouillon Cubes – $6
12. 5 bags of dried beans – lima, pinto etc $12.00

These prices are estimates and not representative of any particular business.

That would give you a very basic diet with an assortment of vitamins. The key here being everything is shelf stable and doesn’t require refrigeration to stay safe to consume. The total for this second list is $200 even. This still allows quite a bit of room to add in other items that you would enjoy or to expand the taste a bit. It also allows you to invest in other items.

Remember this is for a crisis not a luxury vacation. Make sure you have hit all the bases in your Prepper needs before spending your entire budget on just your Prepper food storage list. As you can see this is a way to get cheap Prepper food on a budget.

Conclusion

Once you have decided then you can create a Preppers food storage checklist and mark the items off as you purchase them, again do not forget the water. I did not include water in the above calculations as you can normally find 24 or 30 packs at the bigger grocery stores for around $3 each making a month’s worth a simple purchase.

Also while the prepackaged method is far easier to store and more likely to give you more options the price will quickly add up the more people you are buying for. Some other items that you might consider stockpiling are:

1. Pasta
2. Cereal
3. Canned fruits
4. Sugar
5. Salt
6. Potato flakes
7. Cheeses such as Parmesan
8. Protein/Granola bars

How to catch, cook and eat crawfish.

The list goes on. The main thing is to consider your budget, storage space, number of people and the shelf life of the items. Once you have taken those things into account you will be well on your way to making your first Prepper food storage list. This was by no means meant to be an inclusive list, and prices can be had much lower depending on the foods you select. So take your time and decide what works best for you.

I hope you enjoyed the article be sure to check out our article on why you should become a Prepper. Also remember to sign up for our newsletter to ensure you don’t miss any of our great content.